


Demons

by incandescent (lmeden)



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Dubious Morality, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 15:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8898250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeden/pseuds/incandescent
Summary: Edith is on a train to see her husband. She is traveling alone. She is working on a new novel.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zlot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zlot/gifts).



> I had a hell of a time with this story. I loved all your prompts, and I hope you like the story I ended up writing. It isn't entirely what I set out to write, but I'm not sorry for any of it. Not at all.
> 
> Inspirations: [here](http://spoutziki-art.tumblr.com/post/149521163369/john-singer-sargent-portrait-of-lady-helen), [here](http://ansagirr.tumblr.com/post/137701121812/these-clouds-were-seein-theyre-explosions-in-the), & [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X35voOs4rQA).

The sound of a gasp cut through the clatter of the dining car. Edith looked up quickly, heart already pounding, and through her veil saw a young woman standing before her table. Her hands were wrapped tightly around a steaming mug, and her eyes were fixed wide enough that Edith could see the whites all around them.

_Too young and too curious._

“Can I help you?” she inquired of the girl. 

Shaking herself out of her fixation, the girl exclaimed, “Oh, I’m so sorry! I just saw you and I thought—” She leaned closer. “You look _just_ like your engraving, Miss Cushing.” The girl was English and had dark hair. It was lucky she had such a saccharine personality, because her figure looked far too much like another that Edith wanted to forget.

Edith offered a thin smile. “You’re kind to say so. It’s Mrs. McMichael now, actually.”

It had been several years since she had published her first novel, and Edith had become used to being recognized in the oddest of places. Never before had she been accosted on a train, though. The locomotive rocked on the tracks as it rounded a bend, and Edith shifted in her seat. 

“It’s just that I love _Crimson Peak_ more than anything. I must have read it a hundred times by now! I don’t know how you came up with such horrible characters – I _adore_ them. If my aunt didn’t disapprove of anything interesting, I would have brought it with me. Oh, blast it all, I could have had it signed!” Her voice was as frizzled as her hair, which wound its way out from the confines of her lace-trimmed hat. 

She really was very young. 

_Foolish. Get rid of her._

Edith didn’t happen to carry any copies of that novel around with her. It was too heavy to be manageable in a case, and she so rarely had need of the text. She had written several novels since her first, and most people seemed to have half-forgotten her first. Laying her pen down on the table beside her notebook, Edith folded her hands together to give herself time to think. 

“I’m so glad to hear you love it,” she said. “It gives me such pleasure to know that my work has meant something to someone else. You must give me your address. I will have a signed copy sent to you as soon as I get home.” 

Her voice had picked up some of the Englishman’s burr, a softness of the consonants after spending so many years in this country. She’d also developed a talent for speaking softly and saying nothing at all of any note. She’d hardly picked that up from Thomas, who had spoken every sentence as if it was his last, words tumbling from him in a torrent of passion. 

For all his faults, he had never lacked for passion.

This girl, however, did. She was blushing red right to the roots of her hair, fair skin gone blotchy, and thanking Edith profusely. Edith reached out and took her shaking hand and the note she proffered, shaking it politely. 

“Thank you, thank you!” she gushed. “This means so much to me. You’ve written my favorite novels, and they’re _thrilling_. When I think about that murder scene in your second—”

_Get rid of the little idiot._

“It is nothing,” she said. “I am so glad to have met you, but I really must be going. Novels don’t write themselves, you know.” She gathered her pens and notebook as she stood, letting her skirts fall around her and taking a last sip of her coffee. 

It had gone cold long since, but the bitterness was pleasant on her tongue. It allowed her to girl the girl one last smile before turning away and walking down the length of the car. 

The crowds pressing close to the counter parted to let her pass, as they always did for a woman wearing black. 

_Thank you, Edith. I could hardly stand another moment of you staring at a blank page, anyway._

 

#

 

The train whisked through the landscape, sweeping away one vista just as Edith had begun to be accustomed to it replacing it with the next. She leaned against the window of her compartment and watched the fields and copses of dark trees slip by.

The compartment was silent and still enough that she hardly dared breathe.

Her notebook lay open on the seat beside her, but she hadn’t written more than a word as a time in days. She had nearly felt up to the task of a sentence this morning, but that girl in the dining car had shattered her concentration, and now all she could think about were the dark halls of Crimson Peak and the sharp edge of Thomas’ smile and the way Lucille’s fingers had curved around her knife. 

It was all jumbled – the years-old memory had faded in clarity but was no less affecting for its blurred edges. The terror she had felt that day, when her first marriage had been torn apart, was still keen. 

She reached out and drew her notebook toward her. She kept her touch light and careful. 

“The problem with this,” she said in a whisper, “is that it isn’t real.”

It had been so easy to write about death and ghosts and betrayals when they were real. When she tried to write now, all that came out of her were bland words – the shape of the world that surrounded her these days. She had escaped death and horror, and now the world was entirely flat. 

The cool glass of the window was a balm to her headache. 

_What will you write? A love story?_

Edith snatched her hand away from the notebook.

Fingers knotting in her lap, she shook her head and winced. 

“There’s no such thing,” she said, half to herself.

 

#

 

Lucille had long since reconciled herself to the sadness that lived at Allerdale Hall. 

When she was a little girl, littler than Thomas had ever been, the groans of the sinking manor had terrified her. She had thought that demons were creeping up from the pits of hell to devour her and her mother. Never her father: he wasn’t around long enough for Lucille to think that he merited devouring. 

By the time she was ten, and Thomas six, she had realized that there were no demons in Allerdale Hall but the ones she sat down with every day at dinner. They watched her from the other end of the long dining table, candlelight catching on the sharp planes of their faces and glittering off the black spheres of their eyes. The demons were everywhere – helping her with her buttons as she dressed, bringing her lunch after her tutoring, smiling at her as they reached out to pull her close. She was surrounded by demons, even when she looked in the mirror.

The only human in Allerdale Hall was Thomas. _His_ eyes were a light blue, the color of a storm leaving the sky, and his smile a thing of wonder. Lucille felt warm when he looked at her like that, as if she was the only thing in this world he loved. As if she was something beautiful.

It always astounded her that he could not see the black void within her, that pit filled with dagger-sharp edges and flame-quick hatred that came roaring up to devour her whenever she was left alone with mother, or when father called for her late at night. 

Thomas loved her, and his love saved her. 

Until he gave it to someone else. 

 

#

 

Edith stepped off the train and set down her bag with a thump. The air was cold and bracing, bitter enough to sink through the heavy fabric of her coat and lash at her skin. She’d never quite grown used to English winters. And here by the sea, it sometimes seemed as if the land itself was in mourning during the winter.

Edith hefted her bag and turned, looking at the station as the train groaned and began to ease away down its tracks. 

The platform at Merille-by-the-Sea was small enough that it didn’t even have a proper ticket booth. It was bordered on all sides by heavily furred pines of the darkest emerald, broken only by the thin trail that led away through them, presumably into town.

_A pitiful place._

Edith turned. The ghost stood over the train tracks, suspended entirely in the air. Her worn dress shifted as if caught by a wind Edith couldn’t feel, and her eyes glittered blackly. She looked around, then to Edith. 

_It fits him._

“Don’t be cruel,” she said. “He might not even be here.”

_It would be a shame if he wasn’t, after all this time and effort._

“I think he will be. I can feel it.”

She could smell the crisp tang of the sea from here, just detectable beneath the heavy odor of the pines. She reached up to loosen the pins that held her veil in place and pulled it off. The world around her brightened noticeably, and she shoved the scrap of fabric into her pocket. She went to the edge of the platform and looked down the track that passed for a road. 

The trees hung heavy branches over the road, shadows twisting into think cobwebs of darkness that slung their obscuring hands over the path. The wind that pushed through the branches could not lift the weight of them, and it trailed the lightest of touches over Edith’s lips. She imagined another dark corridor, where silence had been a cage, and shivered. 

_Have you been studying the occult when I wasn’t looking?_

Edith couldn’t help herself; she laughed. 

She turned back and gave Lucille a broad, toothy smile. The ghost turned as if lashed by a sharp wind, and the shadows of her dress rose up to hide her.

Tucking her bag under her arm, Edith walked to the edge of the platform. Her smile softened away as she looked down toward the rough path and considered the heels of her boots. She took a deep breath and held it, then headed down.

A moth fluttered by, brushing her cheek with its delicate wings. 

 

#

 

The inn sat at the center of Merille-by-the-Sea, just south of the crossroads. The town itself was a slight walk from the beach, but it was close enough that the air was bitter and the streets swept clean by wind that roared in off the waves. Edith’s hair was a tangled mess by the time she stepped into the smoke-stained taproom that filled the first floor of the building. The men who sat drinking glanced up at her briefly before returning to their drinks and low conversations.

Edith walked across the room toward the mistress of the house. The woman held down the space behind a heavy wooden bar. Her hair was a dull brown and her eyes matched. Nonetheless, there was a sharp curiosity in her gaze as she watched Edith. 

“Good evening,” she greeted the woman. 

She ran her eyes over Edith. “What do ye want?”

It was not particularly rude. Still, it took her a moment to gather her words.

“A room. For two nights, maybe three. And some news, if you have any.” 

_She doesn't know anything._

The woman nodded and leaned down, oblivious to the ghost leaning over Edith’s shoulder. She pulled a heavy ledger out and dropping it onto the bar. An inkwell and pen quickly followed. She wet the nib and opened the book, flipping to the appropriate page. 

“Right,” she said, voice low and drawn out. Edith had to lean closer than she liked to hear her. “Three nights, ‘at was. For just you? What did ye say yer name is?” Her eyes flicked up again. Edith countered with a smile. 

“Mrs. Edith Sharpe,” she said. 

The innkeeper’s stare shifted slightly, turning flat and incredulous. It took a moment to smooth out. 

“Alright then, Mrs. Sharpe. Pleasure.” She jotted down the name and held out her hand. “That’ll be three shillings now, three when ye leave.”

_Robbery._

Edith nodded and pulled out her purse. She dug out the change and no more, careful to be exact, and slid it across the bar. The woman nodded to accept it. The coins clicked as she picked them up and tucked them away where Edith couldn’t see. 

“I’ll show ye to yer room,” she said, closing the book with a sharp snap. “Come.” She jerked her head to the side and walked around the edge of the bar. 

“The news?” Edith asked.

The innkeeper stopped before her. She was of a height with Edith, but broader round the hips and wearing a plain dress that looked at least ten years old. Edith felt awkward beside her, acutely aware of the others in the room. She didn’t like being listened to.

“And what do ye want to know about, Mrs. Sharpe? We don’t get much news all the way out here. I’d think ye’d be the one bringing us the news.”

Edith nodded. “It’s my husband. His name’s Alan. He’s had some trouble, and…” She paused as if to gather her thoughts. It was not hard; deception sat uneasily with her. She felt Lucille’s attention, close and cold, as she listened. “ _We’ve_ had some trouble. If he’s been here in the last few weeks, it would do me a lot to me to hear that he’s alright.”

The innkeeper was surprised by the admission, that was plain. It was likely unusual for a woman to admit that her husband had wandered off and left her. It didn’t bother Edith in the slightest. She had grown accustomed to the unusual. 

“Don’t know that I’ve heard of him, but I’ll ask around for ye.” The woman was obviously unwilling to say more. “Come now. I’ll show ye to yer room.”

 _Liar_ , Lucille hissed. 

Edith picked up her bag and followed the woman across the taproom. She would get no more from her today.

Her feet ached and her bag seemed to have grown heavier as the day grew long. The walk from the station into town was long enough that the shadows had stretched out around her, laying themselves prostrate on the ground, and the light from the lowering sun had turned a deep gold. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to unlace her shoes and lay back on a soft bed. 

The innkeeper led her up a thin stairwell and down a hall that was just as thin. When she reached the third door, she fumbled with a set of keys and opened the door. Edith stepped inside, following her into the small room covered with dark wallpaper. A wide bed had been pushed against the wall. The bedding was dark and neatly tucked, and the only smell was smoke. The woman went across the room and bent to light the little brazier. Edith settled her bag on the bed and went to the window set in the wall next to the headboard. She pushed aside the curtain and peered out. 

The view was lovely – the thatched roofs of Merille-by-the-Sea in the foreground and the distant grey of the sea in the distance. The sky above the water roiled, streaked with clouds that burned a fiery vermilion. 

 

#

 

The girl’s hair was a golden crown, woven of pins and plaits and practice. Lucille supposed it was fate that they had met her in midsummer, with sweat on the backs of their necks and crowds filling the parks to bursting in their need to feeling the sunlight on their skin. She was a summer child. She shone with good intentions and determination, and the fact of her existence pained Lucille even now.

The winter air had picked at that crown, tugging it half apart. She laid her bag on the bed and settled down onto the edge of the sheets with a sigh. A few yellow strands fell over her eyes. Lucille felt the strangest urge to reach out and push them away.

 _You will have to hunt him down_ , she told the girl. _He will never return to you willingly._

The girl’s eyes flashed to hers, the cold grey of a sharpened dagger. “And whose fault is that? I’m not the one with blood on my hands.”

Lucille was hard pressed not to laugh, but she’d found that controlling herself was much easier these days. Even her rages stayed contained these days, storms in a bottle. 

_Your hands are clean as mine, dear murderess. And I won’t ever let you forget that._

The girl’s hands twisted in her skirts and her chin lifted. As her lips worked and shaped the next words she intended to throw at Lucille, she was violently beautiful. The girl’s anger overwhelmed her, spilling out in dark spirals of onyx that Lucille knew only too well. 

Like this, Lucille could almost understand how Thomas had come to love her. 

 

#

 

Edith woke in the middle of the night. 

She had barely managed to undress after her argument with Lucille before falling onto the bed. She still wore her dress and jacket, though her shoes leaned against each other by the side of the bed and the laces of her corset curled across the blankets. She hadn’t even unpinned her hair, and it ached as she sat. 

Restless energy thrummed beneath her skin. She suspected she’d been dreaming of Thomas, but couldn’t recall anything but the sight of dark hair and pale skin. 

Lucille was nowhere to be seen.

Grimacing, Edith reached up and began to unwind her hair. She loved her mother for many reasons, but hated the hair she had given her daughter. It was too heavy and thick, and it took hours to dress. She threaded her fingers through it, feeling for the little pins that held it in place, and after a moment another set of fingers began picking through as well. A pin came free and dropped to the blackest with a soft _thunk_. 

Edith’s fingers brushed against the other’s for a second, and a swooping chill ran through her. It settled in the pit of her stomach and she yanked her hands away. Fisted them into the blankets and waited, the ghost behind her pulled the last pins out with unerring precision and her hair uncurled, warm and heavy, across her back. 

She inhaled sharply and straightened, but did not turn around. “Thank you,” she said. 

_You should rest. Tomorrow will not be easy._

A hand came to rest on her shoulder, gentle in its touch and yet chilling. Edith felt her flesh rise up into bumps. The brazier’s warmth had fled and the candles had worn themselves out. The room was utterly dark, and Edith could barely even see her own hands where they twisted in her lap. 

“Do you think he will come?” She nearly bit her tongue when her voice trembled.

_He will not be able to resist you. You may have forgotten, but I have not. He loves you more than any other._

“Then why did he leave?” Her voice cracked apart then, and she was not even ashamed. It was in moments like this that she felt the pain of absence most acutely. First Thomas, then Alan, had left her. In the darkness of the middle of the night, she felt a darkness within herself, sharp-edged and monstrous. Some days she woke into the darkness before dawn and counted her heartbeats just to be sure she was alive. She was sure that she could slip across the gap between life and death at any moment. 

The grip on her shoulder tightened, and she felt the creature behind her lean close, press her lips to the shell of Edith’s ear. 

_Sometimes the things we love most are the ones with the power to destroy us._

Edith shuddered. She turned around and found the darkness a blessing. It hid the black orbs of Lucille’s eyes, the way her very skin had turned to shadows. But for all that, she felt no less real. Her ghostly flesh was as soft as ever, and her lips trailed fire where they brushed against Edith’s skin. 

 

#

 

Edith spent the next morning by the beach, journal in hand as she filled the edges of the pages with little sketches of birds and clouds little words that came to her as she walked, later returning to the inn in the evening when the clouds gathered low and cast back the light from the glowering sun, painting the world in violent shades of pink and indigo, filling her with a dull kind of awe that gave her nothing but trite words of so little value that she did not even bother to put them down onto the page. 

She went up to her room and unlaced her boots and left them tangled by the door. She drew the fox she’d seen up at the base of one of the pines, neck twisted and stomach rent to expose gleaming innards. It had steamed its life out into the icy air, its blood a deep, rich red. 

She could not shake the image of it. 

A knock on the door brought her out of her musing, and Lucille looked up from where she’d half curled around her. Edith slid from the bed and went to the door. 

The innkeeper stood in the hall. “Ye have a visitor,” she said shortly. “Downstairs having a pint, he is.”

Edith’s throat was rough. Her fingers itched for a pen with which to write. She was sure that the words that came to her now would speak of sudden hope and terror.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be down in a moment.”

She closed the door and looked down at the laces of her shoes. 

_Do you have the courage to do it?_

She whirled. Lucille was just behind her, close enough that Edith should have felt her breath on the back of her neck. The shadows of her gown reached out for Edith. 

“I’ve never been faulted for lack of courage,” she snapped.

_Perhaps you haven’t ever been tested._

 

#

 

Alan’s gaze was heavy. 

“So you’re using _his_ name now,” he said. 

_She was never yours._

She had given Thomas’ last name because she knew it would catch Alan’s attention. 

“Sometimes,” she told him. 

The tea that sat on the table sent liquid curls of steam drifting through the air, soaking the space between them. The kettle was made of black iron and sat on a thick, knitted mitt. Edith gazed at her husband over the curve of it. They sat in a quiet corner of the taproom, and she’d slipped the innkeeper a shilling extra to stay away for a time. 

Edith reached for the rough-hewn mug the woman had provided and cradled it between her palms. It was still burning hot, but she didn’t mind. 

She was sick of waiting for things to change. 

“Have you been well?” she asked.

A beat of silence. “Well enough. You?” 

She nodded. The silence stretched long again. 

“Why did you leave?” she asked, managing neatly to clip the word me from the end of her sentence. 

_You know why._

Her husband’s lips twisted and he tugged his own mug toward him, taking a great gulp of the tea. It must have burned all the way down, but he didn’t flinch. His hair hung in his eyes, and he looked tired. 

“I’m sorry I haven’t sent the papers back,” he said wearily. “I know it must be trying for you.”

“It is. You’re the one who left,” she reminded him. “You could do me the courtesy of a divorce. You seemed happy enough to be rid of me earlier this year.”

He flinched and took another sip of tea. 

“I haven’t signed them,” he said. “It’s just… Edith, we were so happy together. What happened?”

Lucille snarled.

“You decided you didn’t love me enough to stay,” she growled. 

Flushing, he glanced around and leaned forward. “Only after you— You aren’t yourself any more. You’ve changed too much.”

She knew her smile was ugly. “I’ve grown up.”

“You’ve done more than that. The girl I grew up with – the girl I fell in love with – wouldn’t have taken to visiting the morgue just to write about the murder victims. The _stories_ you wrote, Edith! And under _our_ name!”

“ _My_ name, Alan. I’ve published all my works as Edith Cushing. I was tried for murder as Edith Cushing. Your reputation is as clean as ever.”

“You brought death into our house. I don’t understand why you couldn’t let them go.” He reached out for her, pleading. “I couldn’t stand being around your ghosts anymore.”

“There is no such thing as ghosts,” she said hoarsely. 

_Only monsters._

“There is! To you, at least. They were all you could think about. Ghost stories. You wrote them and wrote them. Day and night, visiting crime scenes and morgues. You let those ghosts consume you.” He’d turned fiery with passion, eyes burning, and Edith remembered suddenly what she’d loved so much about him. 

It didn’t stop her wanting to slap him. 

“I don’t see how my writing has anything to do with—”

“I left because you cared more for your ghost stories than you did for me!” he snarled. 

“They are my _work_ , Alan!” She slammed her mug down. The tea slopped over the edge and burned her fingers. “I never said anything about the long hours you spent in the surgery, the nights you didn’t come home!”

“My profession is very different from the stories you tell.”

She was breathless with anger. The heat of it crawled up and settled into her cheeks, pricking at the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t stand to look at him. Her gaze flashed across the room, and the townspeople who had been watching them swiftly looked away. She realized she was breathing heavily and her hands had knotted into fists. 

_This is not the end_ , Lucille whispered into her ear. _Do not let him break you._

“What will you do?” she asked. “If you don’t approve of me, will you give me a divorce?”

His gaze was soft and full of pity. “That would ruin you,” he said. 

“You _left me_ , Alan,” she snapped. “And before that, Thomas died. I have been ruined for a very long time.”

His lips tightened. “You aren’t—”

“Don’t you dare pity me,” she said. “Give me a divorce and let me go. I don’t need you anymore.”

“You do.” He reached out. “Edith, I still love you. Come back to me and stop writing. Stop dwelling in death. It will drive you crazy if you let it. I want to help you, Edith. Please let me.”

_Kill him._

She could not say no. That was the crux of it. Alan was not a particularly persuasive man like her father had been, nor passionate as Thomas had been. Instead he was innocent, so convinced of his own rightness that he convinced others of it, too. She wanted to say yes and let him take her hand. She knew the feeling of his palm on her, and she knew that his touch would be dry and warm. 

Entirely human. Completely alive. 

She drew her hands into her lap and fiddled with the little bag she’d been carrying around for weeks. Waiting for this moment.

“Okay,” she said. “We can talk. But first, let me get us some more tea.”

 

#

 

The next morning, she went up to the cliff. Alan had left Merille-by-the-Sea the night before convinced that Edith still loved him. She had taken the last of the tea they’d drunk together and tossed it into the garden. She’d broken the mugs and stashed the kettle in the bushes, and gone to sleep with a seething ache in her stomach.

That had faded by now. She was long since immune to the poison. 

The wind from the sea pushed at her and tried to tug her over the edge of the path, but she dug her heels in and leaned forward. The innkeeper had given her directions to the hunting lodge Alan had rented when he’d come nearly a month before. 

She saw the building from below. It was an old construction made of rough, piled stones that had been worn grey by the sea’s spray. 

It was a good walk from the edge of town proper, down a path that led right up against the edge of the cliff and looked out over the sea. It was a quiet path, where few people walked. Edith’s scarf wrapped tightly under her chin and her notebook was tucked under her arm. 

She found him ten feet from the edge of the path, leaning against one of the trees. The shadows that dappled his coat had rendered him nearly invisible. If it hadn’t been for Lucille’s pointing finger, she would have missed him entirely. He had nearly made it home.

Edith walked over, a heaviness settling in her stomach. She sat on her heels by his side and looked at him dull, staring eyes. 

_It is for the best._

She turned her eyes up to the ghost and was pleased to see the creature flinch away from her gaze. 

She reached out and took Alan’s outstretched hand. He was already stiffened with the cold, and his skin felt like nothing at all. With a great effort, she lifted his arm and kissed the creases at the center of his palm. 

She did still love Alan. 

That was the problem. 

Edith stood and left her husband’s body. She walked to the cliff’s edge and reached into the pocket of her skirt. She drew out the little bag, much lighter than the night before, and flung it over the edge. 

_Unwise_ , Lucille snapped. 

“I don’t intend to need that anymore,” she said in return. 

_No one intends to have the need._

“I won’t need poison like that again. I seem to recall that you did more than enough damage without it, anyway.”

_You aren’t a monster._

“And neither were you.” She and Lucille stared at each other for a long moment. The grey clouds that hung above were heavy on Edith’s soul. The edge of her notebook dug into her ribs. The only cure she’d ever found for this kind of sickness was writing. “It wasn’t Thomas that made you beautiful. And it wasn’t Crimson Peak that made you ugly.” She looked the ghost over, suddenly pale and wan in her obsidian shadows. “Come on, let’s get out of this wind.”

She passed the ghost and walked down the path toward Merille-by-the-Sea. The sea tugged at her, but she kept her heels on the path and her gaze steady, as words began to form in her mind.

 

#

 

The ceilings of Allerdale Hall had caught the sound and cast it back, cutting whispers formed of the barest brush of cloth across the rooting floors. It had always felt like a tomb to Lucille. Her hatred of the place was a physical thing that curled within her and snarled, sinking its lazy claws deeper as the years had passed. 

She had never been happier than the day when Thomas had come back from school and kissed her on the cheek, wrapping his arms tight around her and promising to take her away from it all.

And he had, but by that point the house had become a part of her, and she’d carried the bloody darkness of it within her wherever she’d run.

The wind that tore at her spirit ebbed for a moment as she watched Edith walk away. The girl was shrouded by a darkness of her own, but she wore it well, and her sadness did not dim the brightness of her spirit. 

Her presence burned Lucille. 

For years, her mother had told her that she would burn in hell for her wickedness. Lucille had believed her utterly. 

She had never thought she would enjoy it so much. 

 

#

 

Edith bit her lip and rolled her pen between her fingers. Her notebook was balanced on her knees, and her back pressed to the headboard. Her skirt had rucked up to expose the tops of her dark socks and the pale skin of her thighs peeked out.

She was so busy turning words over in her mind that she nearly missed the large, dark moth that landed on her with a near-soundless flutter. 

Smiling down at it, Edith whispered, “Soon,” and dipped her pen. 

The creature flew away. Warmth grew within Edith. She knew just what her story needed, and she was afraid that her hero would have to become the villain after all. 

She bent over her notebook and began to fill it with words.


End file.
